5 quick ways to cut calories from your diet

Weight Loss

5 quick ways to cut calories from your diet

The following tips will help you redecorate your calorie drinking. Remember that each of the steps can be done over a few weeks to a month. I suggest that you make one change once a month and build upon each one.

1. Cut out all juice. Manufacturers make you think it's healthy for you, all full of pulp, vitamins and natural ingredients, but when you juice a fruit you take away all of the fibre, leaving only sugar and some vitamins. In fact, the juice contained in fruits is nature's way of getting you to eat the fibre in the first place! Remember, juice is just pop with a multivitamin.

2. If you must drink pop, switch to diet pop. Make no mistake – diet pop has its own controversies, and water is always best, but to tell someone who drinks three cans of pop a day to switch to water is unrealistic. Perhaps a better "weaning process" is to move from regular pop to diet pop, and then after a while move to water.

3. Say no to fancy coffees. â€¨Choose lower-calorie alternatives. Get rid of the whipped cream, switch to low-fat milk and use sugar-free sweeteners. Find a way to lower the calories in the drinks you like by cutting the quantity and trimming the fat and sugar.

4. Downsize your sugary drinks. Size does matter, so if you are drinking a large, switch to a medium for a few weeks, and then ultimately to a small. You'll eliminate anywhere from 200 to 1,000 calories just by downsizing, depending on the drink.

5. What about alcohol? Alcohol is full of empty calories. If you have to have a drink before dinner, try and stick with a lower-calorie alternative. Mixed drinks are the worst offenders; a piña colada has 645 calories per serving, a margarita has up to 450 calories, and vodka and cranberry juice can have up to 200 calories.

Alternatively, you can use a sugar-free or lower-calorie mixer. For example, vodka with club soda and lemon juice would contain far fewer calories than vodka and orange juice. Finally, as a rule, try to restrict your alcohol consumption to no more than one to two drinks per week.Click here for more tips on how to cut back on your liquid calories.

Sleep

How to recover from a bad sleep

Sleep

How to recover from a bad sleep

Try these tips to feel energized and awake even when you tossed and turned the night before.

Whether brought on by sick kids or the stress of a looming deadline, restless nights happen. Fortunately, it's possible to eat, drink and rest your way back from a sleepless night. Here's how to feel energetic and rested after a bad night's sleep.

Choose the right foods
Why does that doughnut look so very good when you're so very tired? "Sleep restriction has been clearly shown to increase appetite for calorie-dense foods," says Dr. Charles Samuels, founder and medical director at the Centre for Sleep and Human Performance in Calgary. Tara Maltman-Just, pharmacist and executive clinician at Vitality Integrative Medicine in Winnipeg, agrees. "After a night or two of sleep deprivation, we tend to go for things that will give us that instant energy surge: sugar, energy drinks, coffee, even carbohydrates," she says. "However, we'd be best served over the course of the day by making sure we're balancing each meal or snack with protein and a healthy fat."

If you're struggling to keep your eyes open, enjoy eggs with veggies for breakfast or a salad with nuts and avocado for lunch. That way, says Maltman-Just, "you give your body continuous good-quality energy that will release gradually."

Get to know joe
As caffeine-crazy Canadians, many of us can't get by without our morning (and afternoon) cups of joe. But consuming too much caffeine makes it less effective—even when we need it most, like after a long night spent tossing and turning.

To keep your brew working for you, reduce your daily caffeine consumption to one or two cups of coffee in the morning, says Dr. Samuels. "Then, interject caffeine where required," he says. "For instance, if you're sleep-deprived and need to be awake for a meeting that afternoon, that's the time you would use caffeine."

Nab a nap
Add some force to that caffeine kick by adding a 15- to 20-minute nap after you've downed a cup. "A nap is far more effective than caffeine, and a nap plus caffeine is most effective," explains Dr. Samuels. Because caffeine's alertness-boosting effect takes 30 to 60 minutes to peak, drinking a cup of coffee before snoozing will provide the benefits of a rejuvenating short stretch of sleep as well as a natural limit to the nap.

How to avoid a bad haircut

Beauty

How to avoid a bad haircut

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Bad haircuts are a fact of life. We all usually experience one at some point or another (and have the photographs to prove it). It’s often the result of a moment of daring or something getting lost in translation between you and your hairstylist. However you ended up with your less-than-stellar ’do, we want to help make sure it never happens again.

Be honest with yourself According to Dove celebrity stylist Mark Townsend, the number one mistake people make when getting a haircut is being unrealistic about their styling commitment. If you’ve been air-drying your hair for the past 10 years, chances are you won’t start to flatiron it daily. Pick a style you know you can—and will—replicate at home.

You are not the expert You may have heard certain rules when it comes to cutting hair, but that doesn’t make you an authority. Many customers try to give their hairstylists instructions on the technique to use when cutting their hair. According to Redken’s lead stylist, Jorge Joao, this is a big no-no. Remember that your stylist is the expert and has his or her own way of doing things, regardless of what you’ve heard is “right.”

Use simple language So what should you tell your stylist? Describe the style you want in clear terms. “When asking for a cut, keep it simple and try to use words that won’t confuse your message,” says Joao. “Sometimes, using trendy words or slang can give you a result you’re not looking for.”

Use visuals “Hairstylists are, by nature, visual creatures,” says Townsend. So have images—be they from magazines, the Internet, your personal collection or anywhere else—that will help convey the style you want. A picture really is worth 1,000 words.

Pick a stylist you trust Once you find a stylist who you mesh with and who understands your hair, stick with that person. “When you’re looking for a change, you should go to someone you trust,” says Joao. It’s OK to debate with your hairstylist about possible styles, but if you really don’t trust his or her judgment, it’s probably time to look elsewhere.

What to do if you still end up with something you don’t like Make sure you give your new cut some time. Sleeping on it for a day or two, washing your hair and styling it yourself—even asking friends for their opinions—are all good to do before deciding you don’t like your new ’do. “Honesty is the best policy,” says Townsend, “but saying what you mean and being mean are two different things.”

Moisture Surge
Smooth out dull, dry and stressed out hair with an aggressive hydration regime. The key is to get a good base, first replenish then protect. "If you're prone to frizzy hair, try and use a smoothing shampoo," says Smith. If your hair is particularly parched, a heavy-duty hair mask should be applied once every week says Smith. Avoid oil slicked hair by distancing the product from the roots, two to three inches should do the trick. In between masks Smith recommends applying argan oil to damp hair post shower. "The oil will help weigh down the hair, which will in turn helps smooth out the frizz," says Smith.

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Tame Flyways
Avoid any products with alcohol, it can dry hair out further. You can try an alcohol free hairspray or something a little more weighty. Smith recommends using a finishing cream. "I love Unite's Second Day ($25) because its a really light cream but still does it's job of weighing down flyways." Another old school trick is the rinse your hair with cold water, this helps cool the cuticle and slams down any breakage, which minimizes flyaways and makes hair look shinier. Another oldie but a goldie tip; run a Bounce dryer sheet over your hair to reduce the static, that can cause flyways.

Easy On The Heat
"Anytime you use a hot tool use a heat protectant, that's going to shield you from breakage [which causes hair to look frizzy] and makes the hair look healthier," says Smith. Be it your straightener, blowdryer or curling iron, heat can cause hair to look frayed. If your budget permits, invest in heat tools with ionic technology. They help to reduce frizz by compressing the cuticle, which fights off moisture. Just remember, less is more when it comes to heat tools and blow dryers.

Moroccanoil

Proper Technique
If your goal is to get your hair looking super sleek—and having it stay that way—it comes down to mastering a blowout. After a serum or argan oil is applied to damp hair, spritz on the heat protector and rough dry with your blowdryer. "You want to rough dry until your hair is 70-80% dry," says Smith. Smooth things out by applying the nozzle and using a round brush, "aiming the nozzle down will help close the hair's cuticles [this is the outermost part of the hair shaft and it's formed from dead cells, overlapping in layers] down, which helps it look really sleek and shiny," says Smith.